Friday, 13 June 2014

St. John's NL to Badger NL (456 Kms=283 Miles)

I was remiss in
talking about where we stayed for the two nights in St. John’s. Pippy Park. It is in the city of St. John’s. Close to lots
of things but, apparently, not close to wifi!! Well, that is a bit of a
mistruth. There is actually wifi up in one section. It is the big gravel
section that has pull-through spots for the really big rigs. There is NO
bathroom anywhere near here. The nearest one is about 1 block away in another
loop. This meant that, although we could have taken one of these spots,
(wouldn’t we have looked funny?) we didn’t due to the bathroom situation. Also
these spots are about $50 per night. A bit steep!

Instead, we opted for another loop with just water and
electric and bathrooms. We really have needed our heater that’s for sure. Last
night, again, it was down to about 4-5C Boy can you ever feel that with the
wind through those canvas sides that we have.It still cost us about $45 per night for this loop. It is, in our
opinion, entirely way to steep a price for the quality that you get. Plus,
there is NO excuse not to have wifi in this park given that it is in the middle
of the city. The other weird thing is that there are theft warning signs all
over the place, even in the bathrooms. They do have a security hut with someone
in it 24/7 but I guess you cannot control the boundaries of the park and
unsavoury folks still get in. They had even mentioned that we should put our
bikes inside our “trailer” or lock them to the patio table (which we did)...oh
brother!! This is actually the first time that I remember seeing such big
cautionary notes about theft. We had
actually read this on a review about this park in RV Park Reviews. Still,all things said, it’s about the only game in
town so okay to stay in. Just lock your kit up!!anyway, here are pictures from the night before we left....

Looking towards the bathrooms from our site.....

We left St. John’s bright-eyed and not so bushy tailed, at 9:30 Friday morning. It was a great drive with total sunshine and billowy clouds the entire day. So nice to do the drive out of St. John's in the sunshine.

See...nice sunshine!!

Moose Detection System. Pretty funny because it had an "Out of Order" sign hanging on the bottom. They installed this system to give you an indication of whether or not a moose has been detected on this small section of highway. Lots of money I am sure. Would it not be prudent to fix it rather than just driving out 50 miles to hang a sign up saying it did not work? We laughed pretty hard. Apparently it has been broken for a number of days because we saw it on the way in to town earlier in the week! (Remember, 110,000 moose in this province so the vehicle/moose incident can be alarmingly high with always bad results....). Good idea though!

Fancy poles with solar panels even!!

Anyway, onward we drove and it was so nice too. As you can tell by some of the pictures, not too many cars on the road either. My turn at the wheel so Doug was in charge of pictures. He has turned into a pretty darn talented photographer on this trip!!

Funny sign we found in Gander.....this is

still closer than Vancouver!! What's up anyway??

Once we got to Gander we stopped at the Aviation Museum. I had wanted to see the display that they had put together during 9/11. When the terrorists attacks occurred, all jets were ordered to land. Many of the commercial jets were brought down in this tiny town. 38 commercial jets and 4 military aircraft were at the Gander airport for a 4 day period. That makes approximately 6,700 people all at once, on the ground. The townspeople worked together and housed everybody (many in private homes), fed everybody and comforted everybody....until they could all leave to go home. Quite a feat to organize in a mere few hours.

Afterwards, the letters of gratitude starting pouring in to the town, many of them with donations. They collected over $60,000 in total. All the letters are on display in the museum. Pretty heart-warming......

It was indeed a "Safe Haven"

Nice job Gander townspeople!!

Yup, that's us!!

This has been a long, long road trip. We finally are pointed westward.

It's time to come home. We couldn't be happier!!

Friday night you will find us in Badger at the Catamaran RV Park, again for an overnighter....

Peace....

Thought for the Day: Italian Proverb: If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot.....